The Awakened Queen
by YakFruit
Summary: High-Queen Khalida Neferher, beloved warrior-princess of Lybaras, sits alone in the dark and dreams of snakes. She wakes to a ruined Nehekhara; a lonely, decrepit tomb; and a cryptically direct command: Slay them all! ((This storyline is concurrent with the events of The Awakened King: Part 1))


_...ssssssssssssss…_

_...ssssssKha..._

_...sssssKha-liiii-daaaaa..._

_...Khaliiiii-daaaaaa…_

_...Khalida…_

…_.ssssSlumber no more…_

Khalida Neferher opened her eyes. She was seated in a dark room. Before her, a rectangle of blazing light, overwhelming, but comforting to gaze upon.

A serpentine silhouette rose from the bottom of the rectangle, the shadow of an asp, sleep and graceful. Though the creature was but a shadow, Khalida knew it was looking at her. Then its head turned around, and the snake slithered away and into the light- shrinking into the distance with dreamlike speed.

…_Khaaaliiiiidaaaa…_

She rose from her seat and followed the serpent into the light. Then she was in daylight, the sun of Nehekara blazing above her. Khalida looked behind her and saw a ruined building, buried in a sea of golden sand.

_...Khaaaliiiidaaa…_

She turned towards the voice. It was in her mind, it was all around her, and it was also above her and distant. She spotted the serpent staring at her from atop a nearby dune, its body gleaming emerald in the daylight. Once she made eye contact with the creature, it again turned from her and slithered away over the lip of the dune and out of sight. Khalida began walking up the dune towards it.

As her eyeline topped the dune, a Nehekaran city was plainly visible in the distance. Khalida recognized it immediately. It was Lahmia- the distinct architecture of its necropolis was unmistakable. Yet not all was as she remembered. The great coastal city of the east was in ruin- and it seemed to pulse with a dull red light. Beyond the ruined city, the sea sparkled with mysterious expanse.

The serpent was here. An asp. It too was gazing towards the distant city of Lahmia. But it seemed to feel her eyes upon it, as it slowly curled its head to look up at her, snake-eyes an emerald gleam.

_...ssssKhalida…_

The snake turned back towards Lahmia.

_...ssssSlay them all…_

Khalida was filled with an intense eagerness to follow the snake's hissed command. She would slay them. She would slay all of them. The question of 'why' never entered Khalida's consciousness.

"I will," she said to the snake. "But how?"

The snake began hissing, It curled upon itself, over and over, carving the sign of infinity into the sand. Then it suddenly shot forward along the sand and through Khalida's legs. She spun to keep her eyes on it.

When she turned, Khalida was standing in shallow seawater, surrounded by a dense forest of mangroves. It was the coastline of Lybaras. Khalida could feel it in her heart. She was on the coast of her homeland.

_...ssssSlumber no more, Khalida…ssssSlay them all..._

She looked up. The asp was in a nearby tree, curled around a branch. Upon eye contact, the snake looked away, deeper into the mangroves. Khalida followed its gaze.

_...ssssSlumber no more!..._

The mangrove swamp began to roil with movement. Serpentine shapes were thrashing, rising from the murky brine. Khalida felt a growing awe. She was eager to see what was coming. Whatever was rising, it was hers. It was how she would accomplish the snake's commands.

_Khalida._

She again looked at the snake, still in the tree branch, but changed. It was gazing at her with those emerald eyes, but its body was a scimitar, and its head the hilt. Instinctively, Khalida reached for the weapon. Her hand grasped the snake-head hilt. She felt a thrumming of power deep in her body, vibrating up from her gut and groin, sizzling up her spine towards her head.

…_.ssssSlumber no more!..._

* * *

Khalida Neferher opened her eyes. Or at least, she felt as if she did. Her world was a black void. She drew in a breath- and she heard a dry rustling sound and felt her chest move. So she was alive, then. But where was she? Even if she closed all the curtains in her bedchambers in the middle of the night, it would not be as dark as this.

She realized she was holding something in her right hand. Khalida rubbed her fingers on it. It was a sword hilt. She'd held a blade since she was a child, so there was no mistaking the feel of a scimitar in the hand.

A sound entered her dark world. She froze, though she'd barely yet moved at all. She listened. It was a clinking sort of sound, growing quickly louder. A hissing, clinking noise. Like metal tools hitting stone and sand. Like digging.

Then a muffled voice. "Hurry up! You useless corpses! Dig, damn it!"

A louder clank, like something hit the wall of blackness that enveloped Khalida. Should she be ready for enemies? Should she hide? But before she could decide, light burst into her universe as a line of yellow light pierced the black wall. But not all of the dark, just an eye-sized circle of her world.

A mask! Khalida realized she was wearing a mask! But she didn't have time to take the mask off, right now. Khlaida froze still as the line of light quickly grew into a rectangle, revealing the shadows of several humanoid figures.

"Finally!" said the voice, now unmuffled.

A cloaked figure darted into the shaded darkness of Khalida's world. Once out of the sunlight, it sighed with relief. The other figures seemed unclothed. They held pickaxes and lumbered forward clumsily, then stood motionless. A few of them groaned, and Khalida caught the scent of decay. As her eyes adjusted to the new light, she saw people with decayed flesh and empty, dead eye sockets. Undead! Sacrilegious filth! In her chamber!

The desire to strike out at the creatures nearly overwhelmed her. But they were many, and she was one. Khalida recognized the need to act carefully. She waited. Coiled. Ready to strike. When the moment came.

"So she is here, just like He said," said the robed figure, apparently to himself. "High-Queen Khalida. Still dead on her dead throne." Then he began ruffling through some sort of bag at his waist. He withdrew an item, a kind of effigy or fetish, Khalida couldn't see it clearly in the dim.

The cloaked man stepped up toward her, trespassing on Khalid's dias. "Let's wake you up," he said.

Khalida watched him extend the festish towards her, curious. Then alarm bells rang off through her head. Whatever that thing was, it must not touch her! Her body responded instantly- all the coiled readiness springing into action, driving her body into action: a body which spent a life-time at swordplay and athleticism.

The scimitar, and it was a scimitar, hissed through the air. The cloaked man's arm separated from his body at the elbow. Black blood splattered quietly against the far wall of Khalida's chamber. The cloaked man grasped at his truncated limb, stumbled back, and screeched with an inhuman voice. He hit the dirt as Khalida rose to her feet before him.

"You're awake!" howled the cloaked man, his hood falling away from his face. He had pale skin, pointed ears, red eyes.

For a moment, Khalida was shocked at the man's appearance. What sort of person was this? But then hatred flowed through her mind and she no longer cared what sort of person this was. He was wrong. A wrong person who should not be. He must die! She took a step towards the fallen creature, raising her scimitar for the death blow.

"Ki-kiil her!"

The other figures in the room, the motionless undead, suddenly sprang into motion. The nearest swung a pickaxe at her. She batted the blow aside with her own weapon. But then another of the creatures stumbled into her, bare hands grasping at her face, cutting off her vision. She jerked her head away, and she felt whatever mask she was wearing pull away from her head. With her field of vision expanded, she was shocked to see the room entirely filled with undead. The lumbering corpses must have been entering steadily ever since she started concentrating on the hooded figure.

The pick-axe corpse swung at her again. Khalida staggered back, feeling another two hands grope at her thighs. The pickaxe sank into the head of another undead, but it didn't seem to dissuade it from reaching out toward her nonetheless, groping hands along her breasts. Khalida lost her balance.

Panic shot through her mind as she felt herself falling, unable to keep her feet. No! No! She lashed out with her sword as she fell, but she only sliced some dead thing open. It simply grabbed her arm and began to squeeze it. She hit the ground softly, half held aloft by the dead hands holding her. Then, more hands grasped her body. Her calves. Her feet. Her head. Her buttocks. They were gripping hard, as if hoping to squeeze the life out of her like a ripe fruit. Dead faces groaned wordlessly, more of them towering over her. Blocking out the limited light.

Suddenly, they were not undead faces. But human faces. Human faces with red eyes and fanged smiles. Staring down at her, eager for her death. Hungry for it. She'd seen this before, but she knew not where.. Dread and deja-vu swept through Khalida like an icy squall. No. No! NO! Help! HELP ME!

_...sssSlumber no more, Khalida…_

She felt a thrumming power in her gut and groin. The feeling shattered the growing cloud of panic. A confident excitement spread through her. Yes. Yes! This was it! I'll slay them all! Khalida reached down inside herself, into her center, and pulled the thrumming power up, up, up and out. Not just to her head, but everywhere. Every direction. A pressure grew. An anticipation.

Under the crushing hands of the walking dead, Khalida laughed. She felt her body quivering with anticipatory pleasure. Gods, yes! This is it! Her eyes rolled into the back of her head as the climactic sensation suddenly rolled through her body.

**KOOM!**

Green mist exploded into existence, violently gushing forth from every inch of Khalida's body. The undead creatures lost their grip upon her and were flung away. Somewhere in the room, the voice of the cloaked figure began screaming hysterically.

Her muscles still spasming slightly, Khalida rolled to her feet, scimitar at the ready. The numerous undead were attempting to rise to their feet, but they were… melting. Their limbs were turning to mush under the weight of the settled green mist. The acrid smell of cooked, rotten meat was overpowering. Even the walls of Khalida's chamber were hissing, giving off green steam, ornate hieroglyphs vanishing and fading as the stone itself melted away.

She turned her attention to the screeching, cloaked figure. He didn't seem to know what part of himself to grab, as all of him was melting- but at an apparently slower rate than the undead. Khalida strode forward and placed a firm foot on the man's chest. She noted that her own leg was wearing some sort of linen wrapping in place of clothing. That was odd, but not of immediate importance.

"Who are you? What are you?" Khalida yelled at the squirming, melting man- if a man was what it was. He didn't respond. He simply continued to writhe in agony.

Khalida reached down and took a handful of tattered, burned clothing. She saw that her hands were also linen-wrapped, and that like her feet, they seemed unaffected by the green fluid which had emerged from her body… or perhaps just around her body? It was unclear, as she apparently was still dressed in something… but regardless, this cloaked man was the immediate concern!

She jerked the man up, trying to put him on his feet. Khalida had the body of a warrior, so the frail man was easy to lift.

"Do you hear my words!? What are-"

As she pulled the man up, the sunlight coming through the open door of Khalida's chamber fell upon the man's skin. His screaming intensified and he struggled against Khalida's grip with new, desperate intensity. The sunlight was… burning him.

Mystified, curious, and seeing only madness in the desperation of the strange man-creature, Khalida gave up her questioning and simply shoved the man out into the light. He fell to the sand, screeched, roiled about a moment, then burst into flame like an over-oiled torch. With a final wail, the burning figure went silent except for the muted sizzling of its flesh.

Whatever he'd been- he wasn't human. Looked human enough. Maybe had been human, once. But now apparently something else. Something which burned under the light of the sun- that harsh god of Nehekara which burned all that was unworthy.

Khalida looked around her chamber. Still, melting corpses littered the stone floor. The chair upon which she had sat, and the walls around it, were also melting. Why had she been in there? What sort of room was it? A weird sort of healing chamber? How had she gotten here? And where had she been? Oh, right. Neferata's feast in Lahmia. That had been just last night. Hadn't it?

She looked out at the sun-bathed sands and and felt intense dread. No. No, her cousin's feast was not just last night. Khalida didn't know how, but she felt sure that Neferata's grand party had been long ago. Long, long ago. The world out there was different. She could see it in the light. Smell it in the air. Feel it in her bones. Something very strange had happened, was happening. Khalida looked again at the smokling corpse, lying still in the sand.

_...sssSlay them all, Khalida…_

She stepped out into the sunlight, feeling the warmth instantly hit her shoulders. With probing fingers, she tried to salvage something of the burned man-thing. Whatever hadn't melted from the green mist had been singed by the sunlight's configuration. Still, her fingers found something hard and metallic. She pulled out a small broach. A silver shield with the emblem of a skull atop a spear. The emblem of this creature's nation? Organization?

_...sssslay them all…_

Khalida crushed the emblem in her fist and took it with her as she stepped past the corpse. She looked behind her and saw her chamber door- a small entrance to some sort of ruined cypt, half-buried in the sand. A crypt. She staggered as deja-vu swirled through her mind. This was the dream. And not a dream.

She looked down at her bandaged hands. She tore the linen wrapping off one of her arms. Dry, brown flesh was under it, and that was broken and splotchy, leaving the bare bone of her forearm plainly visible. It was the arm of a corpse- of some poor fool left long in the sand and heat of the desert. Khlaida had seen the like before.

So… she was… dead? Khalida clenched her fist, watching the limb obey her command just as it always had before. No. Not dead. Undead? She looked at the smoking corpse of the man-thing, then she looked up at the sun, blazing hot and white in the blue sky above. She spread her arms to it, closed her eyes, bathing in the light of day. Obviously, she was not burning. She was worthy to walk under the sun of Nehekara. So not undead, then. She was no abomination. But what then?

Khalida's mind churned at the question for a few seconds, then it grew frustrated and cast it aside. It didn't matter what she was. She was alive. She knew what she needed to accomplish. The snake had told her.

She walked to the top of a dune, just as she'd so recently done in the dream. But over the horizon, there stretched only sand. Of course, Lahmia was miles and miles to the north. It could not be seen from the top of a mere dune in Lybaras. That had simply been a trick of the dream. Khalida's eyes traced the northern horizon, rising and falling with the flow of seemingly endless sand. What had happened to Nehekara? This was all farmland before, but now it was a wasteland.

Her eyes came to the coast. A thin ribbon of green vegetation grew like a border between the golden sand and the azure waters of the ocean. The Mangrove Coast was as it had always been. Khalida was comforted to see at least one thing that was recognizable to her. And then she remembered the dream. The swirling shapes in the mangrove shallows. Khalida was filled with the desire to see the mangroves. She began walking east towards the sea, sword in hand.

So she was dead, but not. Her mind squirmed around that fact. She didn't want to think about it. She didn't want to delve into the ramifications of her own… undeath. What was the point? She could hold a sword. She could walk. She didn't burn in the sun. The whole issue was of lesser importance to her mission. Khalida's mind turned to more practical questions:

Slay them all, Khalida. That was the command of the asp. And the 'them' was certainly to be the race of the strange man-thing, slain by the sun. Khalida was sure of that. She wasn't sure how she was sure, but it didn't matter. She knew an enemy when she saw one, or so she thought.

And Lahmia. The great easten city. Slay them all. So… Lahmia perhaps was full of those man-things. Of course. Why else show her the city in the dream? And that dull red color it had? Corruption? Like their red eyes. It made sense. It sounded right. Khalida felt it was right. Suddenly, she was sure of it.

But how to slay them? How to cleanse the city of Lahmia, if it was indeed full of creatures like the man-thing and their undead servants. Where could she get military force? All around her, the desert sands covered the lands that should be Lybaras. Not a ruin, not a building, not a carved stone was visible. Was her own crypt the only survivor? Lybaras was not a big city- but it was no village hamlet either- and yet it was apparently gone. Obviously, Nehekhara was diminished in some fashion. By what forces was it diminished and the total extent of the diminishing, Khalida had no idea; but, a prosperous empire didn't let the holy tomb of a queen fall into the state of dereliction that her own… crypt… exhibited.

Was there still a military power in Nehekhara? Perhaps to the west, where the central imperial cities were. But that was leagues and leagues away. And even if that part of the empire remained, would they help her? Would they recognize her as a queen when her very city was vanished from the earth? It didn't seem likely. Or was there no one? Nothing but sand between eastern sea and western sea. Nothing left of Nehekara but herself alone, walking slowly through the sand under a blazing sky. If that were the case… how would she accomplish the asp's command?

The sun was sinking and orange-ing in the sky as Khalida's feet stepped into the warm ocean water. The mangroves loomed before her, swaying softly in the ocean breeze. Birds chirped and insects rattled their various calls. It was the first noises of life Khalida had heard all day. She stood still and listened.

So… what now? She'd come here, like in the dream. Now what?

Movement caught her eye. She jerked her head up and left. A snake was in a nearby tree. A green asp. Just like her dream. But this snake wasn't looking at her. It didn't even seem to notice her. It continued on its snake way, going on with its snake life. This wasn't a dream. It was just a snake.

This anticlimactic ending to her long walk filled Khalida with frustration. So?! She was here! What was she supposed to do?!

"Asaph!" Khalida shouted into the mangroves. "I'm here! What do I do?"

The mangrove forest absorbed her voice and didn't respond. The birds and insects continued their cacophony. No snake turned to look at her. She was just some crazy woman yelling at nothing. And that thought made her more angry.

"Slay them all?!" Khalida yelled again. "How do I do it? I'm here, aren't I? I slumber no more!"

The sand under her feet moved suddenly. Khalida sloshed backwards a few steps towards the shore. What was that? Some sand fish? A giant clam? Something had moved under the water. Suddenly, Khalida remembered the roiling water from the dream. Perhaps…?

"Slumber no more!" Khalida shouted.

The shallow seafloor erupted in a splash of sand and brine. Khalida scrambled back in gleeful surprise, stumbling over mangrove roots as she backed away from the squirming, swirling shapes in water all around her. Then, like a demigod of the sea, a stone snake rose out of the water. It had a snake-like lower torso, but the upper torso of a man, with bulging pectorals and biceped arms carved of stone- though worn somewhat smooth by the erosion of sand and wave. Its head was a menacing human-like skull, and its hands held a polearm with a long, curved blade.

Sepulchral Stalkers! The guardian statues of the Nehekaran borders! For countless years, the Nehekharan kings carved these snake-men statues, animated them with the souls of elderly soldiers, and placed them along the seacoast to handle pirates and raiders. Who could know how many of these constructs were lost, buried under sand and mangrove root- sleeping the eons away.

But these were no longer sleeping. Nor was Khalida. She gazed upon the boiling mangrove swamp. She smiled as the sepulchral stalkers continued to rise from the murk. They slumbered no more.

And with these to aid her… Khalida opened her left fist and looked again as the silver-shield broach of the man-thing. She would slay them all!


End file.
